Raju, four others remanded to seven-day CBI custody

Hyderabad, Mar 9: More than a fortnight after registering a case against tainted former Satyam Chairman B Ramalinga Raju, a court today remanded him and four others to seven days' CBI custody for enabling the agency to carry out a detailed interrogation in the Rs 7,800-crore scam.
The XIV Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate granted CBI the custody, which begins tomorrow, of Raju, his bother Rama Raju, former CFO Vadlamani Srinivas, former auditors of Price Waterhouse S Gopalakrishnan and Talluri Srinivas.

All the five accused would be questioned by a special CBI team set up to unravel the entire conspiracy in the scam, which shook the country's corporate world.

The judge directed CBI to take custody of the five persons from tomorrow 10 am and produce them at 4 pm on March 17. The questioning will be carried between 10 am and 5 pm every day in presence of their respective counsels.

CBI, which took up the investigation from Andhra Pradesh CID last month, registered a case on February 20. The agency wanted the custody of the accused for seven days in connection with the fraud and fudging of accounts of the firm.

The Raju brothers and sacked PW auditors were quizzed by the state CID before the case passed onto CBI.

The court also dismissed the bail petitions of PW's sacked executives. This was third time that their bail plea was dismissed by the court. PTI